The start

Vettel’s demise means there are now four different cars in the top four places on the grid: McLaren, Red Bull, Williams and Lotus. The highest Ferrari, that of Alonso, is only sixth, and his start will be critical to how his race develops.

The run to the first corner is short at just 300m and the pole sitter has never lost the lead between the grid and the first corner. Even so Lewis Hamilton, who started from pole here in 2009, is anxious about making a clean getaway:

“At the start, it?óÔé¼Ôäós down to the team to make sure the clutch performs perfectly because the getaway will be incredibly important. Our race pace is very strong, but so is Red Bull’s ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ and staying ahead will be tough, particularly with the double DRS zones.”

The only good news for Vettel is he won’t have to go through turn two on the first lap, which was where his race went wrong last year. As the field scream through the first two corners he will negotiate Abu Dhabi’s unusual underground pit exit and then go sprinting after them.

Strategy

How Vettel’s race unfolds from there will be shaped to a large degree by how well-equipped the Red Bull RB8 is for overtaking. As we’ve seen in recent races the car is conceived around taking pole position and pulling away from the field. Straight-line speed isn’t its strong point (see below).

This was particularly clear in Belgium, where Vettel did a superb job to climb from 12th at the end of lap one to finish second. He struggled to pass cars in the DRS zone, but was able to use the RB8’s superior downforce to close on cars through the high-speed Blanchimont and make passes at the chicane.

Though he should have little difficulty picking off the stragglers in the DRS zone, Vettel may have to get creative once he finds himself in the midfield. Merely getting into the lower reaches of the points may prove a challenge.

As his car has been taken out of parc ferme and will start from the pits the team may be able to make some set-up changes to help him. But they’re unlikely to be able to radically transform the car’s top speed.

One factor that would considerably aid Vettel’s progress is a safety car deployment. That would close the field up and bring him closer to the cars in front. However in the past three races here it’s only come out once.

As the tyre selection for this race is again on the conservative side we are likely to see drivers making single stops for tyres during the race. This may give Vettel a strategic opportunity to gain places using an aggressive two-stop strategy.

There wasn’t much to separate the front-runners on their race fuel stints during second practice. However Raikkonen (speaking before Vettel’s penalty) believes his car is quick enough to take on those in front of him: “The car hasn?óÔé¼Ôäót felt fantastic all weekend but we decided we weren?óÔé¼Ôäót going to change the car?óÔé¼Ôäós set-up from where it was for the last race.

“It was the right choice because in the end the circuit came to us in qualifying where the car was the best it has been so far here. We?óÔé¼Ôäóll give tomorrow our best shot; Let?óÔé¼Ôäós see if we can make a good start to get right behind the Red Bulls, and then we?óÔé¼Ôäóll see what happens after that.”

Vettel’s penalty is a lifeline for Alonso. His championship chances initially suffered a setback in qualifying as he could only manage seventh. Technical director Pat Fry admitted that despite breaking the curfew twice and bringing a stack of new parts the team had not found the gains they needed:

“We had brought various updates here, some only fitted to Fernando?óÔé¼Ôäós car, because we do not yet have enough of them for both. Unfortunately, the whole package did not work the way we had expected before coming here, at least relative to the progress that the other teams have made.

“Both Felipe and Fernando did the maximum they could: unfortunately they had already reached the limit in Q2, which explains why it?óÔé¼Ôäós not by chance that Fernando did practically the same time three times in a row, while the others raised the bar in Q3.”

Jenson Button was surprised at his gap to Hamilton, most of which came in the last sector, where Hamilton has tended to be strong:

“I shouldn?óÔé¼Ôäót really be starting this far back,” Button admitted. “All weekend, I?óÔé¼Ôäóve been pretty happy with the car, but, for some reason, we just couldn?óÔé¼Ôäót find the pace in qualifying ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ and we don?óÔé¼Ôäót know why.

“Obviously, our car is very quick around here ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ Lewis put it on pole by quite a margin ?óÔé¼ÔÇ£ so there?óÔé¼Ôäós some more time to find.”

Alonso’s strong straight-line speed was a major factor of his strong race in India.

But if anyone should feel confident about making passes tomorrow it’s Pastor Maldonado, who was comfortably the quickest in a straight line during qualifying.

Abu Dhabi has two DRS zones on consecutive straights, each with their own activation point. This may make it possible for a driver who is overtaken in the first DRS zone to re-pass in the second, as we saw last year.

Over to you

Can Alonso make it onto the podium? Where will Vettel finish after starting from the pit lane? And who will be leading the world championship in 24 hours’ time?

They’re not allowed to change gearing. They have to declare gear ratios on Friday evenings and use them for the rest of the weekend.

On the f1technical forums, some people are suggesting they still could do it if the penalty amounts to additional grip places only, which obviously wouldn’t affect Vettel any more from where he starts. I don’t know how realistic that is.

Starting from the pit lane is worse IMO. If Vettel started under normal circumstances from the back of the grid he at least has a chance to make up a few positions right away. When starting from the pit lane they wont release him until the cars have completed sector 1. :P

I saw some tweets from journalists who asked Whiting how that will be handled. Apparently Whiting will wait until all cars get through turn 1 and are out of his sight before turning the light green. All that time Vettel will be waiting at the end of the pitlane right behind the HRT pitbox.

On the other hand, Vettel will avoid any problems in the first couple of corners (remember the crashes at the hairpin last year?), have a bit of clean air in front and will likely still get past the back 4 in the first lap, not sure about Petrov though (Alonso might thank him this time!) and he will hope he won’t have to do them in the slower sector. The STR cars will probably just move aside, but then he will quickly run up to the backs of the Senna, Saubers, FI group, and Schumi where he will lose a lot of time, if he gets past at all without waiting for their pitstops. All in all, avoiding the chance to change setup and avoid fÃ­rst corner problems is fully worth catching them a bit later.

Love to see that but it is highly unlikely! history repeating? only if Petrov is in a Renault so…mission impossible! but let hope Petrov is not going to make it easy…let’s drag out for a few laps would be good enough.

Best f1 news I’ve read for months…quoted SV “that’s what I’m talking about!” anyhow just glad to wake up and read the f1 news without any finger pics up your face for once in the headline!. FA had 2 bad luck being taken out of 2 races, it only fair that luck goes the other way. if luck also play a part of the Championship then that’s it.

@xjr15jaaag – that’s the primary reason hey have taken the decision to start from the pit lane. Hopefully it will pay dividends with easier overtaking and a better race set-up so he can go faster. A safety car late on wouldn’t go a miss also!

As the tyre selection for this race is again on the conservative side we are likely to see drivers making single stops for tyres during the race.

Pirelli makes huge gambles at the start of the year in terms of tyre selection, but then they go all “Bridgestone”. They surely doesn’t want to be the one to blame if the end of the champion goes “radical” because of the weird tyres…

Seems Vettel was slower than Webber right through the session, does this mean he is running out of strong engines ? Fits my oft stated theory that Vettel gets the “full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes” strategy while Webber gets the “steady as she goes” strategy. Hopefully the team will be giving Webber every thing they can to get a win and not using him as a roadblock to help Seb.

@vettel1, As others have pointed out, it is not that easy, if they reduce “wing” the car will have less grip not only making it slower around bends but also hastening tyre degradation which will already be higher than anticipated due to running in turbulence behind other cars.

@hohum that’s not strictly true to be honest. With the characteristics of the old Bridgestones – you could definitely keep them alive, for longer – with more downforce. But with these Pirellis it’s a different story.

@raymondu999, I think you have it back to front, clearly, all else being equal, with the Pirellis the more you slip the faster the tyres wear, more downforce equals less slip, it is how SV has gone faster longer on tyres.

@hohum More downforce is less slip. No arguments there. Slip causes wear, but NOT degradation (important distinction)

But the Pirellis have, since early 2011, shown a remarkable resistance to wear. I spoke to Paul Hembery a while ago about this very question and he confirmed that indeed the tyres are more degradation limited rather than wear limited.

Hence why tracks that were traditionally tyre-killers for the Bridgestones in terms of heavy traction, such as Monaco, Singapore, Canada – all have seen 1 stoppers (2 in the case of Singapore) comfortably.

Instead, those with high energy corners have become the tyre killers.

If you were to look back at how races panned out on Bridgestones, and compared them to how they panned out on Pirellis – you’ll see that the ones with faster, more sweeping corners have proved more trouble for the Pirellis, relative to the slower corner tracks.

Especially when the the softs are likely to get them to over half distance here. The only thing it might enable is to wait for the stops of the mid field to gain places when they think Vettel won’t be able to pass much on track anyway. And then save the best set of softs for a shorter stint in the end where he can try and gain on people having older mediums. But since those will be fast cars, and the tyres will be durable (and both the McLarens and the Lotus cars were very good on their mediums) there’s not that much chance it would pay off IMO.

Pastor 325.8, Lewis 313.7 and Mark 311.2 mph top speed. It’s going to be a very interesting first lap between the top 3 assuming they all start well off the grid.

Hopefully the set-up changes will aid Vettelâ€™s efforts significantly. Easier DRS passes combined with a good strategy by perhaps starting on he hards could serve Vettel well tomorrow.

Mark recovered from 17 seconds down from the tailenders at the end of the of the safety car in Suzuka to finish 9th, so Sebastian should be able to pick up a 7th or 8th place if his strategy works out perfectly and he doesn’t get stuck behind anyone for several laps.

However the dual DRS zone worked against Mark last year in his battle with Jenson, so I wouldn’t be suprised to see Sebastian overtake in the first DRS zone only to be repassed in the second.

I am now looking forward to tomorrow’s race more than I have for any this year. Regardless of whether or not there is much action on the track, it’s going to be super tense. Vettel and Alonso will be battling it out without actually racing each other. I’m sure both will be constantly updated with the other’s progress. Meanwhile, there are all sorts of wildcards to add spice: Hamilton looks to have the pace to win, but Webber is alongside him in the fastest car (in general, not just at this circuit), Maldonado is one place behind with the best top speed and the opportunity to pull some DRS passes, RÃ¤ikkÃ¶nen is alongside him and should have the pace to at least hold off the Ferraris, or perhaps even move forward himself. Not to mention that we’re going to see whether Vettel really does lack the ability fight his way through the field, as so many people say he does. Personally, I think he’s a much better racer than people give him credit for, and I fully expect to see him picking up a point or two tomorrow. I imagine he’s going to treat the race like it was the last one of the season, and do everything in his power to make sure Alonso doesn’t leave the weekend with a points lead. Should make for an enthralling race!

It makes sense.. Vettel would want every advantage he can get going into the final 2 races.. Especially as 1 of them is a completely untested venue, and Interlagos has been known to spring a few championship surprises over the years.. Really hope it goes down to the wire in Interlagos like 07/08, would be entirely fitting for a championship like this to go the whole distance…

@estesark Nice summary of what we can expect … I would add a mention to Button as McLaren has been super strong on medium tyre, would be nice to see a great come back at the end of the race from him. With all those elements it can’t be a boring race ^^ (even if I never really find any race boring, let’s say procession are less exciting)

For the champ lead, Vettel has 13 points lead, Alonso should finish on the podium to get ahead (Vettel not scoring any point) but that alone, I don’t see it happening. But why not Alonso finishing 4th or 5th and closing …

Ha, it may be interesting to see how Vettel crawl back on the grid, which is quite possible given RB’s capability. Question would be how many places and will it be enough to get into the points? If he can climb up to maybe 10th, wouldn’t Ferarri instruct Massa to definitely defend him off the scoring position? Well, got to see.

Red Bull have made the following changes to Vettel’s car, presumably to give him better straight-line speed and improve his chances of getting through the field:

The following part has been replaced during the parc ferme today by the Red Bull Racing team:

Car 01: Gearbox

The gearbox has been replaced with the approval of the FIA technical delegate following a written request from the team concerned, this being in accordance with Article 34.1 of the 2012 Formula One Sporting Regulations. But this gearbox change was before the five consecutive Events expired.

Therefore this is not in compliance with Article 28.6a of the 2012 Formula One Sporting Regulations.

Further the new gearbox has different ratios fitted than declared Friday after P2. Also changes to the suspension set-up are made on car number 01.

Due to the different gear ratios been fitted and the suspension set-up changes car number 01 should now be required to start from the pit lane according to Article 34.5 of the 2012 Formula One Sporting Regulations.

The stewards have received a report from the FIA F1 technical delegate that the gearbox, gear ratios and suspension set-up have been changed on car 1.

The stewards decide that car 1 is required to start the race from the pit lane in accordance with article 34.5 of the FIA Formula One Sporting Regulations.

As the first part notes Vettel should get a five-place grid penalty for the gearbox change, but it’s a moot point as he’s starting from the pits anyway.

To be honest that’s quite a severe oversight in the rules and regulations. Everyone else on the grid has to race what they brought to the race, and the reason that Seb is starting in pit lane is because of what “RBR” brought to the race. The rules should not allow changes in the car because a rule was broken in the first place. There should be a penalty for changes into the next race.

Yes KJ … but my point is that RBR have to race what they brought to the race as everyone else does. How is it fair that RBR can change their gearbox, settings and whatever when back-markers have to race according to the rules?

I guess, but that’s where stewards usually come in with common sense. Ex: There’s a rule for causing a collision, but I don’t think there’s a specific rule where someone will be penalized when causing collisions in multiple races, but common sense had the stewards ban Grosjean for a race.

But I guess the new set-up is untested, with new gear ratios, suspension settings and everything – and wasn’t the team’s first choice. They may have simulated the life out of it, but they won’t know how it rides over the kerbs for real. So he could struggle for pace anyway.

Don’t mean to imply it was all premeditated – but they broke a rule. And it puts them in a position where they have a free shot at changing their car significantly, with some prior knowledge of the set-ups everybody else is running.

I guess it’s only the same as a driver with a grid penalty from the previous race (or an engine change) choosing to change a few things, and start from the pit lane – but still doesn’t seem quite right to me.